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Sued for, and sentence about to be passed, when the Grand Vicar appointed Chassaneur as counsel for the rats.

He alledged that being dispersed through numerous villages, a first summons was insufficient, and that notice ought to have been publicly given them in all the churches. This occasioned delay.

Not yet appearing, he pleaded the length and inconvenience of the journey, and the evident danger of death from their sworn enemies, the cats, which were diligently guarding all the passes. He concluded with describing the injustice of general proscription, which involved parent and child, innocent and guilty. He gained great fame on this occasion, and laid the foundation of his future grandeur. Holcroft's Travels.

THE various forms of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. And this toleration produced not only mutual indulgence but religious concord.

Gibbon's Rise and Fall, v. 1, p. 1.

SWIFT in his journies on foot from Dublin to London, was accustomed to stop for refreshment, or rest, at the neat little ale houses on the road's sides. One of these, between Dunchurch and Daventry, was formerly distinguished by the sign of the three crosses, in reference to the three intersecting ways, which fixed the site of the house. At this, the dean called for his breakfast; but the

landlady, being engaged with accommodating her more constant customers, some waggoners, and staying to settle an altercation which unexpectedly arose, keeping him waiting, and inattentive to his repeated exclamations, he took from his pocket a diamond, and wrote every pane of glass in her bet

termost room:

TO THE LANDLORD.

There hang three crosses at thy door:
Hang up thy wife, and she'll make four.
Swiftiana, v. 2, p. 3.

SALMASIUS [the great literary antagonist of Milton] was a Frenchman, and was unhappily married to a scold. "Tu es" says Milton, "Gallust et, ut aiunt, nimium gallinaceus."

Dr. Johnson.

PRIESTLY under the delusive idea that the government of Britain was conducted by tyranny, strengthened by his own peculiar political and religious principles, settled in an inhospitable region in America, but was soon obliged to draw a sad contrast between this and his native land: he fell into a deep melancholy and died of a broken heart.

Ashe's Trav. in Amer. v. 1, p. 69.

CARDINAL WOLSEY had drawn up a draught of certain conditions between France and England, and he asked sir T. More's counsel therein, beseeching him, if there were any thing therein to be disliked," and he spoke this so heartily," said sir Thomas, "that I believed verily that he was will

ing to hear my advice indeed." But when sir Thomas had dealt really therein, and shewed that the draught might have been amended, he suddenly rose in a rage, and said, "By the mass, thou art the veriest fool of all the council." At which sir Thomas, smiling, said, "God be thanked that the king our master hath but one fool in all his council!" Erasmus.

OTHER nations may deluge their land with blood in struggling for liberty and equality; but let it never be forgotten by ourselves, and let us impress the observation upon the hearts of our children, that we are in possession of both, of as much of both as can be consistent with the end for which civil society was introduced amongst mankind.

Dr. Watson, Bishop of Landaff.

To some one who was complaining of his want of memory, Johnson said, "Pray, sir, do you ever forget what money you are worth, or who gave you the last kick on your shins that you had. Now, if you would pay the same attention to what you read as you do to your temporal concerns and your bodily feelings, you would impress it as deeply in your memory." Biographiana, p. 58.

LADY WORTLEY MONTAGUE was a play-fellow of a friend of mine when both were children. She was always a dirty little thing. This habit continued with her. When at Florence, the Grand Duke gave her apartments in his palace. One room sufficed for every thing. When she went

away, the stench was so strong, that they were obliged to fumigate the chamber with vinegar for a week. Walpoliana, v. 1, p.3.

PREVILLE the comedian, and some others (among whom was, I believe, the count d'Albaret) frequently diverted themselves with the simplicity of Poinsinet, the poet; who, in other respects, was not deficient in talents. One day Préville came to him in great haste, to acquaint him that the office of the king's screen was just vacant; and added, that he would do well to solicit for it. Poinsinet

asked what it was: the other told him, that the king did not use common screens, like private individuals; but that he always employed a man of wit, to place himself between the king and the fire, in whatever part of the room his majesty might be, in order to save him the trouble of removing the screen; and that, besides, when the king was lowspirited, or was fatigued by his application to business, he diverted himself by conversing with his screen; who, by that means, frequently had an opportunity of speaking a good word for his friends, or in favor of any other person whom he wished to serve, which made the office both important and lucrative. Poinsinet, delighted, asked what he had to do. Nothing, said the other, but try if you are able to fulfil the functions of a screen. A day being fixed, a dinner was ordered at a tavern: six of their common friends met there; a great fire was made; and, during dinner, they kept poor Poinsinet standing before the fire-place, encouraging him to support the extreme heat of the fire,

which they unmercifully kept stirring all the time, by representing to him the advantages of the office, each begging of him to procure him some favour. They continued this cruel sport till the little man, who was half roasted, declared with great regret, that he despaired of ever being able properly to fulfil the functions of king's screen.

Dutens' Memoirs, v. 3, p. 175.

In the year 1718, a sermon preached before George I. in the Chapel Royal, and published at his majesty's command, by Dr. Hoadley, then - bishop of Bangor, gave no small degree of offence to such of the clergy as were more actuated by bigotry and furious zeal, than by the genuine spirit of the christian system. The text was the famous declaration of Jesus to Pilate, in the thirty sixth verse and eighteenth chapter of John-“ My kingdom is not of this world;" and the object of the discourse was to prove, "that the kingdom of Christ, and the sanction by which it is supported, were of a nature wholly intellectual and spiritual: --that the church, taking the term in its utmost latitude of signification, did not and could not possess the slightest degree of authority, under any commission or pretended commission, derived from him that the church of England, and all other national churches were merely civil or human institutions, established for the purposes of diffusing and perpetuating the knowledge and belief of christianity; which contained a system of truths, not in their nature differing from other truths, except by their superior weight and importance; and which

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